In the modern era, the need and desire to travel for business as well as pleasure has increased significantly. With growing global business pressures, individuals are often asked by companies and firms to travel on short one or two day trips to handle immediate business needs. The increased travel has made the need for efficient air and ground transportation essential. For instance, recent trends in the airline industry has lead to ticketless travel which reduces the transactional time it takes to obtain and present a paper ticket when flying. With respect to ground transportation, car rental establishments have continued to attempt to improve the pick-up and drop-off procedures to minimize unnecessary delays.
Although current car rental drop off procedures are fairly effective, there are still several delays and/or costs which have not been overcome. For instance, upon returning a vehicle an individual must write down or memorize the current mileage and fuel level and then enter the car rental establishment so that an attendant can properly calculate the final cost and print a receipt. This, of course, often leads to delays and inaccuracies in the return. To save time and improve reliability, some car rental establishments employ workers to wait outside for car returns and then have the employee physically check the mileage and fuel level of the returned car. Then, using a wireless portable computer, this information is instantaneously sent to the computer of the attendant inside the rental establishment so that the customer can quickly obtain his/her receipt. Although more efficient, this situation results in increased labor and equipment costs which are ultimately passed along to the customer.
Thus, what is needed is an improved vehicle return system which overcomes the shortcomings discussed above.